Jay Gardner

Vice President, People & Talent

Ms. Gardner is a hands-on People leader with deep experience supporting high-growth startups across SaaS, cleantech, and fintech. Her focus is building scalable People and Talent infrastructure that emphasizes connection and engagement across multiple locations, teams, and levels. Ms. Gardner leads the People function at Ossium, which includes talent acquisition and development, compensation and benefits, as well as employee engagement and performance.

Before joining Ossium, Ms. Gardner established the People team as employee #18 at Turntide Technologies, a cleantech electric motor startup with backing from Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Robert Downey Jr. During her tenure, she cemented the People team as the connective tissue for a before-its-time hybrid model of 6 offices and 40% remote staff, and drove 555% headcount growth across the company. At Turntide, she rolled out multiple people-focused initiatives including introducing OKRs, creating a recruiting playbook, founding a DEBI (Diversity, Equity, Belonging, & Inclusion) team, and building out the onboarding program, Turntide 101. Ms. Gardner also spent 4 years in HR consulting, working with startups across the nation to implement HR systems and best practices. Her team simultaneously supported between 30-40 clients to onboard companies’ first hires, create a foundational HR base, and set the company up for future success with a focus on proactive and consultative HR.

Prior to finding her calling in the People space, Ms. Gardner worked at San Francisco’s two science museums: the California Academy of Sciences (where she presented public engagement shows underwater as a scuba diver) and the Exploratorium. Ms. Gardner received her BA in Feminist Studies from Stanford University, where she won a national championship as a member of the women’s water polo team and was named to the All-American team all four years. She also spent six months playing professional water polo in Greece.